Michaël did a great presentation and from the feedback we received, people were hungry for more from this case ;-)

I wanted to point out some Insights/Best Practices that Michaël shared with the audience:

Education & Evangelising: Michael explained how he had to evangelize at the beginning 3 years ago to get the attention inside the organization. People tend to get excited when they learn what’s possible with Web Analytics. And my favourite sentence was: ‘When you are successful, they ask you for more’. It was also interesting to hear that Toyota also educates their agencies! He also stressed that the important thing is PEOPLE, not the tool; thus the importance of education.

Efficiency over beauty: Michaël explained how Web Analytics is helping Toyota to concentrate on results and business objectives when doing things online. He said that the purpose of a website is not to win a design prize but to meet business objectives (so true!).

Platform vs tool: When speaking about consistency he spoke about platform and explained that for him the important is to have a consistent platform. for Michaël, the technical part of Web Analytics is not one tool, but a set of different tools that compose the WA Platform. The consistency of this platform will then help you to get consistent data.

The 90/10 rule: no it’s not Avinash’s rule;-) Michaël spoke about the importance of automation but also that it was important ‘to allow some room for the particular cases’. So he advises to automate 90% of the tagging procedure, while allowing some specific cases (the exceptions).

Processes: Last but not least he spoke also about processes. We all know the importance of processes and this is something Toyota takes very seriously. He talked also about Nokia and the presentation about this subject that was addressed at Emetrics London this year.

So a very good presentation, keep it up Michaël, you are doing a great work at Toyota!

Julien presented his view of what can go wrong on a Web Analytics project based on his 5 years experience as a WA Consultant. This was the first time I saw Julien present and I was more than pleasantly surprised. Some of the highlights from Julien’s presentation:

Responsibility: very often when dealing with Web Analytics, companies tend not to have someone who’s really responsible for the overall project. This might end up in a failed project as no one takes responsibility thus decisions!

Pan European approach vs local needs: when implementing WA on a pan-European level, companies tend not to take into consideration the needs of their national or local users. When starting a project at this scale, companies need to involve their national entities in the scope definition to avoid that the implementation won’t be able to suit the needs (eg. language problems in the reporting) but also to make sure that no change management issues will be encountered (you first need to evangelize your users and bring them into the discussions otherwise you might end up with people who don’t want to play the game).

Bottlenecks: the slide about where the bottlenecks might be is quite interesting, you see for example the silos between business units and the lack of communication among the external agencies. When dealing with Web Analytics, in order to bring results collaboration and transparent communication is essential!

Precision vs Quality: as Julien stated “Don’t go on a crusade for precision, go for quality”. We all know that 100% precision is not possible (“Don’t use your Web Analytics tool to measure your online sales”), what you need is to have consistency of your data gathering and reporting. This will ensure the quality of the reports/KPIs/dashboards you’re delivering inside your organization (you can read my comment on Ilse’s post about this subject).

Build your team: Web Analytics takes time and requires people! Therefore, you need to build your WA team as soon as possible to avoid always having to rely on your external consultants.

So, that was it. I hope you’ve learned something or that you find this interesting. As always comments are more than welcome. If you attended the event, tell us what you thought of the presentations and don’t hesitate to ask questions to the speakers, they will answer with pleasure.

And don’t forget that the next Web Analytics Wednesday will take place the 13th of June. We will keep you posted through Eric’s website and this blog ;-)

One Response to “Web Analytics Wednesday April 2007 – Brussels – The Presentations”

[…] what Michael Notté of Toyota Motors Europe had to say about his European implementation during our Web Analytics Wednesday last April (video ; slides).Michael’s presentation highlighted the need for cross-country adoption of […]